The Eternal Flame of the Heart
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: When Rhiannon set off the Screaming Jelly Baby experiment, the consequences were not severe. But what if they had been? And how would the lives of Sue and Simon have changed because of the fire that had been caused?
1. Screaming for a Saviour

The Eternal Flame of the Heart

Summary: When Rhiannon set off the Screaming Jelly Baby experiment, the consequences were not severe. But what if they had been? And how would the lives of Sue and Simon have changed because of the fire that had been caused?

Disclaimer: Waterloo Road belongs to the BBC.

Chapter One

Barry Barry and Rhiannon Salt gazed open mouthed in the direction of the closing door, along with the rest of their class, but Sue Spark, the newly qualified teacher who had caused the distraction, hardly noticed the look that she was being given, and gave no thought to supplying a reason for her sudden departure from the classroom. For now, she just needed a moment alone.

A near run in with George Windsor, the patronising languages teacher, led the woman to end up in the cupboard where she kept her scientific supplies, leaning heavily against the door with a sigh, while she fought to choke back a sob. She felt across the wall for the light switch and within a moment, the enclosed space was flooded with light. In the glass of the conical flasks, Sue could just about see a vague reflection of herself. She did not need it to be any clearer, as she could see that she looked a mess.

'_Just a minute more.'_ she told herself, trying to calm her nerves at the thought of returning to the rabble in her classroom. '_I can't let them beat me. Twinkle was right, I have to pull myself together. I can't let him down, not when he has tried so hard to help me. And Dad, as well. I have to do this for them.'_

But as she reached her hand down to touch the metal of the door handle, which had barely cooled from the last time she had held it, she lost her nerve, and walked two short strides in the opposite direction, absorbing herself in thinking of the chemical symbols for each solution on the shelf. It was something she often did when trying to prevent herself from crying, a technique that she had discovered just after her mother had passed away, around fifteen years ago, where she had tried to name each non-metal on the Periodic Table to force the tears away. Since then, there had been many occasions on which this technique had come in handy.

'_I have to go back now.'_ she told herself forcefully, wiping the tears away once again. '_I've left the experiment alone, after all, and you should never leave students alone with any experiment that will explode, especially something like the Screaming Jelly Baby. It has to be specifically controlled, and they won't know that. If one person decides to mess around with it, it could hurt someone, and then even Dad couldn't save me from being sacked.'_

And so she forced another few deep breaths of air into her lungs, trying to calm herself sufficiently, so that she could re-enter the classroom without being ridiculed further by the students. She knew that she did not really have time to do this, as anyone could enter her classroom at any time and see her class unattended, realise that she had abandoned them and run to the supplies cupboard. They didn't know the trauma she was going through, only Simon would understand her, and even if by some miracle it was only him, she would never be able to stand the look of disappointment in his eyes.

Satisfied that she had calmed sufficiently, Sue redirected her thoughts to the lesson she had abandoned, trying to trace her train of thought, so that she would not look like even more of an idiot when she returned to the classroom. It took her around thirty seconds to recall that they were learning about different enzymes and the reactions they catalysed, and with another few deep breaths under her belt, the young woman felt that she was just about ready to return to her classroom.

However, in that same moment, the blissful silence was broken by a loud piercing shriek. It was not a person that had made the sound, as it was clearly mechanically generated sound, almost like an alarm. It only took a split second for Sue to realise that it was not only like an alarm, it was one.

Swiftly, the redhead crossed the cupboard, reaching her hand out for the door handle and pushing it downwards, intent of escaping as quickly as she could do and dealing with the consequences of leaving her classroom a little sooner than she would have wished. But immediately, she realised that something was wrong. The handle would not turn fully, which meant that she was trapped.

Trying, and failing, to force herself to remain calm, the woman began to bang on the door, hoping that, even through the alarms, someone would hear her and come to her aid.

"Hello?" she called, hoping that her voice was loud enough to be heard over the wailing of the alarm. "Hello, can anybody hear me? Somebody, please! Let me out!"

By now, she was in tears once again, pounding on the door like a woman possessed as she heard the footsteps and the chattering of the students fade into the distance. Finally, as silence fell outside the door, Sue fell up against it, sobbing openly as she saw the pale smoke pour in under the door.

The smoke was thickening by the second, clouding the small room and steaming up the flasks of the chemicals with its heat. The redhead began to cough as she inhaled a lungful of smoke, and when she finally had to take another breath, she found herself choking on the heavy gas, unable to breathe properly any longer. The room was so filled with white now that she could hardly even see the hand in front of her face, and an orange glow began to shine under the door. The fire was drawing nearer, but Sue didn't know that anymore. Her breaths were short and quick, and she pounded heavily on the door for someone to save her.

'_Simon will come and save me.'_ she tried to assure herself, as her head swam and she began to sway from side to side as her balance failed her as well. '_Simon will realise that I'm gone and then he'll come to get me. He's probably on his way right now. Just a little while longer and he'll be here, holding me in his arms and telling me it's alright. He'll come and save me. He will...'_

But Sue did not even have a chance to complete her own thought, as the smoke, the heat and her unbridled fear combined to take her consciousness from her. Her legs caved in beneath her, and she twisted as she fell so that she landed with her back towards the door. As the world faded to black, the heat the only thing that remained as the flames began to lick their way beneath the door, the redhead found only one word on her mind, one conscious thought before she slipped away.

'_Simon.'_

A/N: I don't know when I thought of this idea, but I think it would have made everything very different if there actually had been a fire. The next chapter and probably the next few after that are going to be from Simon's point of view, for reason that'll become clear when you read them, which I hope you will. Anyway, please review!


	2. Listening for Sirens

Chapter Two

A/N: Thank you to LittleBooLost and loveistheprotection for being my first reviewers for this story.

The fire alarm still wailed in the distance as Simon Lowsley shepherded the students outside of the building, raising his voice above their shouts to try and drive them into their form groups for the registers. Nikki Boston, as always, was a great help in doing this, and the students seemed to listen to her more readily than they did him. He didn't dispute the fact that Nikki probably had more authority with them at this point than he did, but he didn't envy it either. Though he wanted the kids to listen to him, he did not want to end up as public enemy number one.

Once the form groups were assembled, the registers came back fairly quickly, and they were almost complete, bar two missing students, Connor Mulgrew and Imogen Stewart. Naturally, this prompted Christine to attempt to run back into the building, but George Windsor stepped forward and held her back, repeating Nikki's wise words that they could not enter the building again until the fire brigade had dealt with any dangers. The headmistress did not take this well, and fought back with her old friend, until the doors of the school opened, revealing the two students themselves. '_At least now we don't have any students trapped in the school this time, if there really is a fire. Michael Byrne told me that that had happened before, back when Rachel Mason was still headmistress.'_ Simon thought, but the sound of Sonya Donnegan calling out the names from the staff register was enough to bring him back to the present quickly enough to answer his own.

As always, the Senior Management Team's were read out first, to allow them to go and deal with the students, and so Christine, Simon, George Windsor, who was Head of Sixth Form, and Nikki, Head of the PRU, were free to go. After that, the names were alphabetised by surname, just like the children's registers had been. Maggie, Antoine, Darren, Audrey, Carol, Ramgeet... then silence. A name had been read out that had received no response. When he heard the silence, Simon began to listen distantly, still in the midst of a heated discussion with Shaznay Montrose about scaremongering the other students. But then the name was repeated again, and this time, the man's full attention was caught, as his heart skipped a beat in his chest.

"Miss Spark?" Sonya questioned for the third time, the usual light tone of her voice beginning to be weighed down by realisation. The Deputy Head turned on the spot, leaving a protesting Shaznay stood shouting at thin air, and approached the group of staff gathered beside the steps, his head snapping right and left as he walked, desperate to find Sue stood somewhere on the yard, too engrossed in doing something trivial to have heard her name read out. Unfortunately, he had no such luck, and his fiancée was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is she?" he asked, beginning to breathe a little more heavily. He knew that this was a futile question to ask, as had anyone actually known her location they would have said so by now, but he could not think of any other path to take. There was no response from any of the staff, merely the shaking of heads.

Immediately, Simon's instincts took over and he began to sprint in the direction of the school building, not caring about the smoke pouring from one of the upstairs windows, as he was not worried about anything happening to him, only wishing to get Sue away from the danger.

He had almost reached the steps when he was pulled back by Nikki and another member of staff, Laurence Terrier, Head of Science, each grabbing one of his arms, preventing him from moving any further forward. He fought against them, desperately trying to push past and reach the door, not even really caring what the kids would think of him behaving like this, as his mind was fixed on the danger his fiancée could be in.

"Simon, you can't go back in there! You don't know where the fire is!" Nikki pointed out, gripping his arms tighter as he tried again to pull them free.

"Sue is still in there!" he exclaimed in response, struggling even further. "Nikki, she could be hurt, I have to help her!"

"Well, you're not going to do her any favours by burning yourself to a crisp, are you?" shot back the Head of the PRU. "The fire engines will be here in a minute, and they'll stop the fire and get her out of there. We just have to wait a little bit longer."

Unwilling to dispute the matter any longer, Simon nodded his head, ceasing his struggles and, once they had been released from the grasp of his colleagues, letting his arms fall limply by his sides as his head did the same. Seeing clearly in his mannerisms that he was not going to try again, Nikki and Laurence moved away, making an effort to calm the group of pupils, some of whom were finding Mr. Lowsley's lack of control hilarious, even in such a terrible situation as this.

And so he took Nikki's advice, and waited for the fire brigade to arrive. He found it impossible to tell how long he waited, ignoring the chattering rabble of students and instead listening out for the siren of the fire engine. The siren was the one sound he would pay any attention to at that moment, surpassed only by the sound of Sue's voice. But he knew now that she was trapped, he couldn't deny it any longer. All he could do now was hope the emergency services did not take too long.

The fire engines arrived after a period of time, though Simon could not even have attempted to guess how long it had taken them. To him, lost in his thoughts and his fears, every second seemed to have lasted forever, but now that something could be done about it, time sped up, each moment flying by to give way to the next.

The students were becoming rowdy again, extremely annoyed at the events, as it was coming close to the end of the day and no one was permitted to leave the premises until the fire had been dealt with, in case they were stupid enough to try and return to the building. However, once the sirens had stopped, even they quietened down a little, struggling to understand what was going on, as not all of them had been close enough to hear the conversation between Mr. Lowsley and Miss Boston.

As the firefighters sprinted into the building, needing to deal with the fire before they could even attempt to speak about anything else, Simon sank down onto the steps outside the building, resting his head heavily in his hands. He tried to think of something, anything, that would take his mind off the fire, but no matter in which direction he tried to divert his thoughts, whether it be television, music, books, marking or even just a funny joke he had heard the other day, he could not think of anything without his mind turning to the one person he wished he had by his side. And as he thought of Sue, he could not stop himself from pondering the most horrific question he had ever been faced with.

'_What if I've lost her?'_

A/N: Not very good, I know, but still. Please review!


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